Gibbons touts support from women in weekend tour
State Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons, R-Kirkwood and a GOP candidate for attorney general, is holding three “Women for Gibbons” events across the state on Saturday.
The aim, says his release, is to tout Gibbons’ “long history of success in writing and supporting laws protecting the interests and well-being of Missouri women and their families.
“Gibbons will be accompanied by his wife Liz and daughter Meredith, 19, at all three events”.
The stops also underscore the importance of women voters this fall, when they are expected to cast a majority of Missouri ballots.
The St. Louis event will be at 9 a.m. at the home of former state Sen. Anita Yeckel, 8819 Gladlea Drive, St. Louis;
He’s to be in Columbia for the second event, at 12:30 p.m., at the home of state Rep. Ed Robb and Rosa Robb, 2809 Ashwood Drive.
At 5 p.m., Gibbons is slated to be Springfield, for a stop at the home of state Sen. Norma Champion, 3609 South Broadway.
“Women are the core of our families and protecting our families is my number one priority,” Gibbons said in a release.
“I have long been a champion of supporting issues that protect the interests and well-being of Missouri women and their families, and as the next attorney general I pledge to build on those successes by fighting hard every day to uphold the laws that protect both our families and communities. Missouri’s women deserve an attorney general who will stand up for their interests and that’s what I will do.”
He added that he “helped pass some of the toughest laws in the nation, namely Jessica’s Law, requiring 30 year mandatory minimum prison sentences for child predators and supported bans on child pornography. Gibbons also helped fund local law enforcement task forces to catch cyber criminals and predators and enhanced Missouri’s Amber Alert system to help bring more children home safely.
”In an effort to protect families against the scourge of drugs, Gibbons supported measures to cut methamphetamine production with drug logs and stepped in to fund anti-meth law enforcement task forces when the Democrat-controlled Congress stopped.
“Gibbons also helped pass legislation protecting victims of sexual and domestic violence so they can feel secure to come forward and seek justice by making sure women are no longer forced to take a polygraph test in order for law enforcement to investigate a crime and are not further victimized by having to pay for the rape kit collection of evidence.
”Gibbons also sponsored reforms that saved a program that provides more than 8,000 developmentally disabled Missouri infants and toddlers with early intervention services as part of the First Steps program. He also supported the creation of the Missouri Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorders as a result of recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Panel on Autism formed last year that helped lay a roadmap to help empower families living with autism.”
Gibbons also helped pass legislation to take health care coverage away from 100,000 Missourians including thousands of working women and children.
Why isn’t he talking about that? Isn’t he proud of his record?
Methinks that the women Gibbons likes are the Stepford-like, vapid doyennes who hop and skip when exhorted to go obey their husbands like a good Republican wife should.
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Gibbons gives great lip service to women’s issues. He even supports them… until a well-funded trade-union lobby pushes against it in an election year. A few weeks ago, Gibbons made sure that women in Missouri still cannot have a safe home birth with a legal, trained attendant. He talked a good talk all year, but when the Senate and House both wanted to pass a law protecting women’s freedom to this high-quality, low-cost healthcare, he did what he had to do to make sure the bill failed.
I do not believe that Gibbons cares about Missouri women.
It looks like Gibbons wants women to think he supports them, but in fact doesn’t really think women can think for themselves at all. This was made abundantly clear when he made sure the midwifery bill failed by making a safe birthing option for women illegal for still another year. Worse still, in spite of all the evidence placed before him that midwifery is a safe and cost effective option, he was bought out by doctors groups who have financial motivation placed above womens and babies care. Shameful.
Some friends saw Michael Gibbons on the campaign trail. It was a husband and wife who talked with him about their most important issues. I was surprised to hear them say that Mr. Gibbons seemed to ignore the women present and talked mostly with the men.
Later that month some different friends (I have a lot of good Republican friends) told me that they had seen Mr. Gibbons at a separate function. The wife had gone to shake his hand and wish him well in his campaign and he had ignored her and reached past her to shake hands with her husband.
I would have ignored either of these comments if they had not been so similar, and from different friends who don’t know each other and I hadn’t mentioned the other’s incounter.
They are both convinced Mr. Gibbons does not really care about women or their opinions.
Vote carefully, my friends.
J David
I am nearly struck dumb by this news that Gibbons is touting himself as a “champion of supporting issues that protect the interests and well-being of Missouri women and their families.” Is this true? Is he *really* saying that?
He is.
Naturally, I am compelled to share what I witnessed of his ACTIONS as the Senate President Pro Tem during this last Legislative Session, to provide a more fair and balanced context to the WORDS of his latest campaign-speak.
While it is likely true that he’s voted for all the things listed above, Gibbons certainly didn’t do Missouri women any favors this year during session when he did everything in his power to delay, obstruct, and otherwise doom the Midwives Bill. The bill passed out of committee by a HUGE majority in February and it was ready to go to the full Senate, and yet Gibbons delayed it for WEEKS. Then he waited until the House was basically begging for the bill, and still NOTHING. He only let it go through when he was sure the clock would beat it.
He could have worked his tail off to bring to Missouri women and families the woman-centered Midwives Model of Care—with its high-quality, low-cost approach to delivering healthy babies that result from normal, healthy pregnancies …
He could have saved insurance companies, and the state Medicaid and Medicare programs, millions of dollars …
He could have used the power he had as a policymaker to integrate Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs)—and the multiple-benefit birth options they offer—into our Missouri maternity care system, just as 22 other states have already done …
He could have brought the midwives in from the underground, and brought more transparency and accountability to the state’s maternity care system.
He could have turned the other cheek courageously to Big Medicine’s heavy and increasingly less invisible hand …
He could have turned back around to them and said “Hey, Big Medicine, we can’t just stomp these citizens! We’ve got to engage with all these stakeholders in a meaningful dialogue because we’ve got some BIG problems, guys! Nearly 1 in 3 American women are going through major surgery to give birth, but only a fraction of them are ‘high risk.’ We better turn this SHIP AROUND!” …
He could have done a lot for the women and families in Missouri who will experience pregnancy and birth (84% of all U.S. women will do so) …
He didn’t.
Vote carefully, indeed.
I am deeply saddened that Senator Gibbons’ commitment to championing issues that support Missouri women and their families falls through when the issue falls on the wrong side of a well-funded lobby. Despite scientific evidence and despite the need of women across Missouri for the care of professional midwives, Senator Gibbons chose to stall legislation to license and regulate professional midwives at every key point in the process. While he was assuring concerned families across Missouri that he was doing everything in his power to move midwifery legislation forward, he was in reality making sure that it would not pass. This lack of integrity is what disturbs me most greatly in a man who is running for Attorney General of Missouri.
Gibbons is all for women and families, as long as they bring along their lobbyist and lots of campaign cash. He’s even willing to team up with Democrats like Chuck Graham to carry water for the highest bidder, as long as it means more donations to add to his coffers. Gibbons is the poster child for the back-room, good ol’ boy, pay-for-play style of politics that Missouri voters have had enough of.
This session Senator Gibbons has put his mouth where the money is when it came right down to doing what he said he was going to do. He gives lip service to supporting women’s “interest & well being” but his actions do not line up. He knows full well the interest and statistically based well being of thousands of Missouri women lie in freedom of healthcare in homebirth but he intentionally stalled this freedom. The women were betrayed.